There are many methods that you can use to evaluate your sources. One of these is RADAR (Mandalios, 2013). While designed specifically for evaluating websites, these methods can be used to evaluate all sources.
R - Relevance
How is the journal article, book chapter, etc. relevant to your assignment?
A - Authority
Who is the author (person or organization)?
What tells you that they are an authority?
Does knowing the author's authority tell you anything about the accuracy of the source?
Does the URL of a website give you a clue about authority? For example,
.edu domains are usually university sites (careful, students may also have websites with their universities)
.gov domains are official government sites
.org domains are non-profit organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
D - Date
When was the information published? Is the web page updated? Is the publication date (or lack of a copyright date) important for your assignment?
A - Appearance
Does the appearance of the source tell you anything? Does it look serious and professional? Does it have citations and references? Is it written in formal language?
R - Reason for writing
Why did the author write this? To instruct, inform, and add to a field's body of knowledge? If the source is meant to sway you to change your mind about something, is propaganda or biased, or Is meant to sell something doesn't mean you can't use it, you just need to be more careful about how you use the information in that source.
Mandalios, J. RADAR: An approach for helping students evaluate Internet sources. J Inf Sci. 2013:39(4):470-478.
